Spider Shepherd: SAS: #2

by Stephen Leather

  Soon after dawn the next morning, Shepherd roused the boy and after drinking a few mouthfuls of water and eating some high energy snacks, they set off for Zadran. It was another clear and sunny morning and as they walked along the dirt-road towards the village, their feet scuffing in the dust, they were surrounded by clouds of butterflies, feeding on the nectar of the dog roses, juniper, thyme and lavender growing wild along the earth banks dividing the track from the surrounding fields. The peaks of the mountains of the Hindu Kush were visible to the north, permanently white-capped even in the heat of high summer, and standing out in stark relief against the azure blue of the sky.

  ‘It’s a beautiful country, Karim,’ Shepherd said, as he looked around him. ‘You’ll have to show me it one day, when the Taliban have gone and people can live normal lives again.’ At the sound of his voice, a shrike flew out of a thorn bush giving a rasping call to show its anger at being disturbed. Its prey, a small lizard, remained impaled on a thorn.

  In contrast to the beauty of the country around Zadran, the village - large enough to qualify as a small town - was scarred and ugly, after decades of fighting. They passed through a wasteland of shelled and bombed mud-brick buildings, the facades of those still standing as scarred by bullet holes as the pock-marked faces of smallpox victims. Beyond them was a shanty town of rusting shipping containers where burqa-clad women and small children peered out at them from the dark interiors. ‘We call this area Khair Khana,’ Karim whispered. ‘Container city.’

  As the sun rose higher, a growing number of villagers were now in the streets. Shepherd attracted some curious or suspicious glances and there were a few muttered comments as they passed - strangers were always objects of suspicion in Afghanistan - but he was now well into his role, head bowed, mouth hanging open, and his eyes apparently unfocussed, staring at nothing, and none challenged them. Several people recognised Karim and called out greetings and queries about his companion, but he replied with grave respect, and they appeared to accept his explanations, while Shepherd’s lack of a weapon and his vacant, unmanly demeanour, disarmed any remaining suspicions.

  They reached the large open space that served as the market square and sat among groups of men talking in the open fronted teahouse at one side of the square. Karim ordered mint tea for them, paying with a few crumpled Afghani notes. As they sipped their drinks, the smells of the market assaulted their senses: the stench of animal dung and the stink of fumes from the decrepit trucks and swarms of mopeds, battling with the fragrance of sandalwood, cloves and spices from one stall. Most of the others were only battered crates and cardboard boxes, and the stall holders squatted in the dust alongside their meagre wares: used lightbulbs, sandals cut from old tyres, empty cans and bottles, second-hand clothes, with bloodstains on some suggesting their origins.

  Alongside the staples of Afghan life - rice, green tea, sugar - the food stalls sold radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes and grapes, but few could afford the meat from the stall where the butcher flicked half-heartedly at the flies swarming over his wares and a tethered goat awaited its turn under the knife.

  An ice-seller sat on a wooden cart drawn up in the shade of a mulberry tree with a few fruits still clinging to the topmost branches. A trickle of water ran from beneath the sackcloth shrouding the square blocks of ice that were cut from the river in winter and stored in caves to preserve them from the summer heat.

  As Shepherd and Karim sipped their mint tea in silence, awaiting the promised arrival of the Taliban, Mitchell’s SAS group were twenty miles away looking at the sky and waiting for the flare that would tell them that they were needed at Zadran. The squad leaders, including Mitchell, were sitting up front with the pilots, while the others stood on the skids and lashed themselves to the side of the helis with air dispatch harnesses fastened with a quick-release mechanism. The pilots fired up the engines, and then they sat, engines idling and rotors turning slowly as the minutes ticked away and the sun rose higher in the sky.

  Shepherd and Karim had been sitting in the tea-house for over an hour when they heard the noise of engines and a commotion at the eastern side of the town. A few moments later a convoy of Taliban pick-ups came sweeping into the square. The fighters jumped down and began herding the population into the middle of the square. Four of them burst into the tea-house and drove out the customers, including Shepherd and Karim, with kicks and blows.

  They were pushed towards a cordon of other Taliban who were searching every man. There was a shout as a fighter produced a Bollywood cassette tape he had found in one villager’s pocket. Face ashen with fear, the man was dragged to one side and punched to the ground. Shepherd and Karim were now close to the front of the line and Shepherd was feeling uncomfortably aware of the Glock pistol in his armpit as a Taliban fighter stared at him, then shouted at him in Pushtu. Shepherd said nothing, letting his mouth hanging open and a dribble of spittle run from it, while Karim stammered an explanation. Suddenly there was the loud noise of a back-firing moped. At once, seizing his chance, Shepherd threw himself to the ground, covering his head with his arms and crying out in terror.

  There was a burst of laughter from the Taliban fighters. One kicked him in the ribs and another spat on him, showing his contempt, but Shepherd’s apparent terror had disarmed any suspicions they might have harboured about him. Karim helped him up and they moved on, unsearched and unchallenged, the mocking laughter of the Taliban fighters pursuing them, but Shepherd was also smiling to himself.

  When the last of the villagers had been searched, another Taliban Toyota pick-up was driven into the market square, carrying two men and one woman in a burqa. It stopped in the middle of the square and the victims were pushed from the tailgate and allowed to fall to the ground. The woman’s hands were tied behind her back and she fell heavily. As she was dragged back to her feet, Shepherd could see a spreading bloodstain on the cloth visor covering her face.

  Shepherd had now spotted Jabbaar and began trying to work his way through the crowd towards him, but people were pressing forward, apparently eager for the spectacle to come and, afraid of losing touch with the boy, he had to bide his time. The villager who had been found with a cassette tape was the first to face Jabbaar’s wrath. The man was dragged forward and Jabbaar confronted him, brandishing the cassette tape and shouting in his face, so close to him that the man’s own face was flecked with spittle.

  Some of the Taliban fighters were wearing lengths of electric cable wrapped around their waists like belts. They now untied them, took a couple of turns around their wrists and then began to use them as whips, lashing them down onto their helpless victim. The last few inches of frayed copper wire of the cables had been exposed, drawing blood as the lashes sliced angry weals across the man’s back. Jabbaar himself used a thin, barbed branch torn from a thorn bush as a whip, flogging the victim until he lay still in a spreading pool of his own blood.

  The second victim, accused of theft, was then dragged forward. Two soldiers held him, while another two gripped his right arm and he was forced to kneel in front of Jabbaar. He clicked his fingers and a man wearing a surgeon’s mask, whether for hygiene or to conceal his identity, stepped out of the crowd. He placed a scuffed brown leather case on the ground, took out a hypodermic and injected the man’s arm, then tied a tourniquet around his forearm with a strip of thin leather. There was a murmur of anticipation from the crowd as the surgeon then produced a scalpel from his bag. Playing to the crowd, he held it above his head for a moment, so it gleamed in the sunlight.

  The victim still stared straight ahead, only the set of his jaw and a pulsing vein in his temple betraying his emotion as the surgeon began to cut through the flesh around his wrist. As blood spurted out, he cut the tendons and then broke the wrist with a sound like the snap of a breaking stick that echoed around the hushed square.

  As the surgeon held the severed hand aloft, there were shouts of ‘Allahu akbar’ from the Taliban fighters and some of the crowd. Shepherd suppressed a shudder; the ritual
seemed even more barbaric when carried out by a man using the trappings of modern medicine, than it would have if done by some Taliban warlord, hacking off the hand with a sword or an axe.

  A third man was then dragged forward, accused and convicted by Taliban decree of killing a farmer’s son in an argument over a piece of disputed land. The father of the murdered boy was led forward and Jabbaar said something to him.

  ‘He’s asking if the man can find it in his heart to have mercy,’ Karim whispered.

  The old man gave an emphatic shake of his head. ‘My heart, my honour, demand revenge.’

  His words were greeted with a roar from the crowd. Jabbaar then handed the old man an AK47. As one of the fighters moved to cover the victim’s eyes with a scarf, Jabbaar stopped him. He gestured impatiently to the old man, who raised the rifle and fired, but his hand shook and the shot struck the victim in the shoulder rather than the heart, the impact sending him sprawling. There were screams from a woman in the crowd, who had also collapsed, clutching at her thigh. The round had passed clean through the victim and struck the woman as well, knocking her on her back. Her burqa had ridden up, exposing her legs to the knee. One of the Taliban rushed to her, pulled it down again and then turned his back, concerned only about the indecency, not the wound she had suffered.

  Jabbaar scowled and dragged the old man forward until he was standing directly over the victim and gestured to him to finish the job. The wounded man lay staring up at him, making no sound, as the man held the barrel to his head and pressed the trigger a second time. As a mess of blood and brains splashed into the dust of the square, there was another roar from the crowd. The Taliban fighters dragged the body away and threw it into the back of the pick-up.

  Another pick-up was then driven into the square, its back loaded with a heap of stones. Realisation dawned on Shepherd as he saw the last victim, the woman, being dragged towards a wooden post set in the ground. There was a buzz of excitement from the crowd and men and young boys ran to the Toyota and began loading themselves with as many stones as they could carry.

  Jabbaar pronounced sentence: the woman was guilty of adultery, the penalty death by stoning. Shepherd felt sick at the thought, but as the crowd of men jostled for position, waiting for the signal to start, he saw his chance. Jabbaar was now standing slightly off to one side and his attention and that of his men and the crowd was focussed solely on the woman. As Jabbaar raised his hand, ready to signal the start of the stoning, Shepherd nudged Karim, who dragged his gaze away from the horrific spectacle.

  ‘In three,’ Shepherd murmured ‘From... Now!’

  As Jabbaar lowered his arm and the first stones began to fly, striking the woman’s body with dull thuds like axe strokes on wood, Shepherd sprinted out of the crowd, elbowing a woman aside and bowling over a man who stood in his way. There was a loud whoosh as Karim launched the flare. It tore upwards and burst in a green flash overhead. All eyes were drawn to it, except Shepherd’s. He ripped open the velcro on his shirt with his left hand and drew his pistol in one movement with his right.

  A Taliban fighter swung to face him, but Shepherd double-tapped him, dived to the ground, firing another double-tap as he rolled over, to take down another fighter, and firing again as he sprang upright. A third Taliban fighter dropped as the burst from his own weapon passed harmlessly over Shepherd’s head.

  Shepherd had already dived and rolled once more and came up within five metres of Jabbaar. The stoning had stopped and the crowd was in uproar, most of them unable to comprehend what was happening, so fast was Shepherd’s fire and movement. Jabbaar was scrabbling to pull his AK47 from his shoulder and bring it to bear, but he was too slow. Shepherd double-tapped him, two shots to the chest, just above the heart. Jabbaar crashed to the ground and his rifle skittered away across the square.

  Shepherd was already diving to the ground again, rolling sideways, firing another double-tap as he went, still counting his shots: ten fired, two left before a magazine change. He sprang up again and fired another double-tap towards the Taliban fighters by the pick-up. They were too far away for a kill to be guaranteed but he hoped the incoming fire would disturb their own aim. He now had just one shot left and flung himself to the ground again, whipping out the magazine and inserting a new one even as he rolled across the square, dust matting his clothes and hair.

  Many of the villagers had now fled in panic, but one man, braver than the rest, tried to lash out at Shepherd with his foot. He dodged the kick, sprang up to pistol-whip the man to the ground, and then moved again as a burst of automatic fire tore the air apart in the place where he had just been standing.

  As he dived and rolled again, he heard the clatter of rotors and the rattle of mini-guns as the helis flashed overhead.

  The Taliban fighters swung to face this new threat, but they were now outgunned and outnumbered. Two attack helis kept up a withering fire, the mini-guns’ incessant rattle punctuated by the whoosh of rockets flashing from their pods and torching the Taliban pick-ups.

  The other four helis landed at the edge of the square in a whirlwind of dust and debris. McIntyre, Mitchell and the others jumped off the helis and joined the fight, pouring in a torrent of rounds that cut the Taliban apart.

  The sound of double-taps echoed through the square as the SAS killed the Taliban fighters with ruthless efficiency, flattening any villager who stood in their way. They kicked their legs from under them or punched them to the ground and while the SAS assault teams kept up their withering fire, others secured the villagers’ wrists with plastic ties. When the battle was over, they would be searched and identified and any Taliban who’d thrown away their weapons and tried to hide among them would receive short shrift.

  The sound of gunshots and double-taps slowed and then stopped altogether as the last fighter was cut down. Every local had fled and the square was now completely deserted, but for the dead and wounded and the SAS troopers patrolling the perimeter, still watchful and alert. Mitchell moved among the wounded, treating two SAS men who had non-fatal gunshot wounds.

  Mitchell had spotted Shepherd and ran over to him as he dusted himself down and looked around for Karim. ‘All right, Spider?’

  ‘I’m fine, not a scratch on me,’ he said. ‘But see what you can do for her.’ He gestured to where the burqa-clad woman slumped against the wooden post that held her. Mitchell ran over to her and after checking her over gave Shepherd a thumbs up. ‘She’s badly bruised and has a couple of broken bones, but she’ll live,’ he said.

  Shepherd pointed at the woman who had been shot. She was curled up in a ball, sobbing. ‘She took a round in the thigh, can we patch her up before we go?’ asked Shepherd. ‘If not we can take her with us.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Mitchell.

  Shepherd looked around again and shouted for Karim again. The boy suddenly appeared from behind one of the market stalls, grinning from ear to ear and holding a fistful of dollar bills in one hand. ‘The stall-holder doesn’t seem to want these any more,’ he said, as he ran over to Shepherd, ‘so I thought we might as well have them.’

  Shepherd smiled. ‘We? You nicked it, you keep it.’ He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘It’s time to go,’ he said. ‘We’re finished here.’

  ‘I have one thing to do,’ said Karim, reaching into his bag and pulling out a curved knife. ‘I have to do to Jabbaar what he did to my father.’

  ‘He’s dead, Karim. That’s enough.’

  Karim’s eyes blazed. ‘I will cut off his dick and put it in his mouth. And I will tell everyone that I did it to avenge my father, Qaseem.’

  Shepherd put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Do that, and you’ll be no better than him,’ he said. ‘You need to remember your father as the good man he was. He wanted the best for you, he wouldn’t want you to be ruled by revenge. Jabbaar is dead. It’s over.’

  Karim looked as if he wanted to argue, but eventually he nodded and put away the knife. One of the helicopters lifted off and flew away. ‘Thank y
ou, Spider,’ said Karim.

  ‘It was a pleasure,’ said Shepherd. ‘I liked your father. I hope I can be as good a dad to my boy as he was to you.’ A second helicopter lifted off and Shepherd clapped Karim on the shoulder. ‘Come on or we’ll miss our lift home.’

  KILL ZONE

  AFGHANISTAN

  October 2002.

  Spider Shepherd squatted on his heels outside his tent, drinking his first brew of the day from a battered mug as he watched the wind stirring dust devils from the dirt floor of the compound. The dust covered every surface, leaving everything as brown and drab as the wintry Afghan hills that surrounded him. Unshaven and wearing a tee-shirt and fatigues worn and sun-faded from long use, Shepherd drank the last of his brew and tossed the dregs into the dirt. ‘Why does a brew never taste right out here?’ he asked.

  Sitting next to him with his legs outstretched was Geordie Mitchell, an SAS medic who was a couple of years older than Shepherd. ‘That’d be one of those rhetorical questions, would it?’ said Geordie. He had a floppy hat pulled low over his head. His hair was thinning and his scalp was always the first area to burn under the hot Afghan sun.

  Shepherd stood up and stretched. ‘It just never tastes right, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s because we use bottled water, plus the altitude we’re at affects the boiling point of the water, plus the milk is crap. Plus the sand gets everywhere.’ Geordie stood up and looked at his watch, a rugged Rolex Submariner. ‘Soon be time for morning prayers,’ he said.

  The two men strolled across the compound, their AK47s hanging on slings on their backs. They heard raised voices at the entrance to the compound and headed in that direction.

  They found a young SAS officer, Captain Todd, in the middle of a furious altercation with the guard at the gates. Like all the Regiment’s officers, Harry Todd had been seconded to the SAS from his own regiment for a three-year tour of duty, and was on his first trip with them. He’d only been in Afghanistan for two months and he was finding it tough going. As if his Oxford, Sandhurst and The Guards background was not already enough to raise hackles among the men he nominally led, Todd’s blond hair flopped over his eyes like a poor man’s Hugh Grant and, despite his youth, his nervous habit of clearing his throat made him sound like some ancient brigadier harrumphing over the Daily Telegraph in the Army & Navy Club.